Danji

346 W. 52nd St. (212-586-2880)

Danji, like any modest joint with a one-word name on an anonymous street, deploys a gimmick or two, even though it doesn’t need to. For example, when you sit down, a waitress says, “Your menus are in your drawers.” Beg pardon? She means that your table has drawers, and that your menus are in them. Once retrieved, these menus reveal that the fare is divided into two categories, “traditional” and “modern,” which the chef, Hooni Kim, a Korean-American from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and, more recently, from the persnickety kitchens at Masa and Daniel, doesn’t seem to heed too rigidly.

In general, Danji is neither orthodox ethnic nor smarty-pants fusion. It’s not K-town or Nobu. It’s comfortized Korean served in well-presented tapas portions, by friendly people, in a clean, well-lighted place with a well-tended bar. Things it would seem unimaginative to order turn out to be imaginatively made, such as the lightly crisped calamari with wasabi mayo, or a scallion-and-hot-pepper pancake that isn’t just spackle. Trickier-sounding selections are agreeably blunt; a kimchi-chorizo-and-bacon “paella” comes on a little cast-iron hot plate, with a fried egg on top—it’s a small world after all. On a recent tornado-ish night, there was, as a special, a traditional stew called jjigae, cooked with kimchi (Kim’s mother-in-law makes Kim’s kimchi) that had been aged for six months. A spoonful of jjigae, tart and bubbling like some kind of witch’s brew, was accompanied by the sight, out the window, of Hell’s Kitchen flotsam blowing sideways in a squall.

For bean-curd skeptics, the fried wedges of tofu, custard-soft and sprinkled with panko crumbs and drizzled in a scallion-ginger sauce, are as persuasive as a trip to Kyoto. Meaty counterarguments come in many forms, chief among them the bulgogi sliders (marinated and grilled brisket), which should make the appendix to every best-burger list in town. The advantage of going with a group of six or more is that, one, big groups are allowed to make a reservation, and, two, they can come close to trying everything on the menu, so that the meal becomes a soju-and-sake blur of pickled this and braised that, a cavalcade of little plates with no little flags indicating traditional or modern, and not a dud among them. A clarifying finish comes in the form of a purplish-gray scoop or two of black-sesame gelato, which you eat with a small wooden spoon. (Open weekdays for lunch and Mondays through Saturdays for dinner. Plates $4-$16.) ♦